Photograph taken in Wuchang of a large group of British and Chinese men which includes the Viceroy and Governor, 30 July 1902. The photograph is annotated, ‘Viceroy and Governor second row [from the back in the middle of the row sitting next to each other] sitting with Consular Body on right and left’. Reference: MS 15.6.3.023QUB Special Collections and Archives

Between 23 and 24 June 2017, Queen’s University in Belfast (Northern Ireland) planned an academic conference gathering international scholars from various disciplines ranging from history, art history, history of photography, to sinology. Entitled New Lenses on China: Photography in Modern Chinese History and Historiography, this conference’s successive papers reflected on the impact of photographic sources on our understanding of Chinese history, while assessing the state of the field and considering its future trajectories.

On this occasion, Queen’s University Special Collection also displayed a selection of photographs of late imperial China from the Sir Robert Hart (1835-1911) Collection outside the auditorium where the conference took place. This collection includes several thousand photographs, mostly of China around 1900, along with portraits of Hart and his friends, acquaintances and colleagues.

This studentship is within SPaRK, the Queen’s doctoral training programme funded by the EU Marie Skłodowska Curie scheme. All tuition fees will be paid (including for non-EU students) and students will receive a stipend of £25,576.45 per annum and access to a generous training programme. More information.

Applicants must:
– satisfy the Marie Skłodowska Curie mobility rule, which usually means they must have resided outside the UK for at least two out of the last three years
– be in the first four years (full-time equivalent) of their research careers
– not yet have been awarded a doctoral degree.More on eligibility.

Applicants should submit (all by 11 August 2017):
1) a Queen’s PhD application following the additional SPaRK instructions – see Step 1
2) a 3-minute video (sent to sparkproject@qub.ac.uk) – see Step 2
3) an email introducing themselves and describing their interest in the project, along with a sample of recent academic work in English, directly to Emma Reisz (emma.reisz@qub.ac.uk).